New Roof for the Chook Palace

Last weekend, The Hubs and I built and placed a new roof on the coop.  The recent amount of rain we were having and the fact that we built a half-assed roof on this coop in 2010 because we had to move the chickens to our new home in under two weeks, resulted in a mud bath in the girls palace.

Muddy feet do not a happy chicken make.  Nor a happy chicken keeper.

We built a new frame out of 2x4's we salvaged from the boxing gym where The Hubs works.  We have found we never have to buy lumber or plywood, as there always seems to be some in someone's "free" pile.  This time we decided to go with a metal roof, and we believe the coop will now collapse way before this roof will give out.

This coop is DIY, in every sense. I do know a little something about how buildings are built and how materials go together given my architecture experience, but a talented carpenter I am not.  That said, our girls are very happy and secure in this coop.

Today we put on the finishing touches by adding a gutter at the rear of the coop (to the left in the photo above) and then adding a rain chain to the gutter to keep the water from splashing at the coop corner.  In the future we plan to move our rain barrel to this location to collect water for the girls from their own coop roof.

Here is the rain chain, from the vantage of the raspberries. I threw some pea gravel back there for good measure to try to keep the mud from splashing on and into the coop.

All the new growth on the raspberry canes!  Spring is definitely here.